Ryanair cancels 300 flights affecting 50,000 passengers amid major aviation strike

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled as a result of industrial action, affecting thousands of passengers.

Air traffic controllers in France have been up in arms over trying to reach a deal over working conditions, resulting in the majority of scheduled trips cancelled on Thursday across three French airports. According to the country's DGAC civil aviation authority, these include 75 per cent of trips from Paris Orly airport, 55 per cent of flights at Paris Charles-De-Gaulle and 65 per cent at Marseille.

Disruption was nearly evaded after SNCTA - one of France's biggest air traffic controllers union - announced plans to call off a previously organised strike having reached a deal over working conditions.

However, this came too late to avoid travel chaos today. The news does not just affect those travelling in and out of France, as the drop in manpower means some flights going through French airspace have also been affected.

Ryanair is one of the most impacted air carriers, which announced that more than 300 flights today would be cancelled, impacting around 50,000 passengers. The budget airline and its boss Michael O'Leary have long been waging a war of words against the French ATC workers and unions, reports the Mirror.

In press conferences the Ryanair CEO also blames French laws for "prioritising" domestic flights when ATC workers strike. He wants an EU law change so that planes flying over France on strike days are protected.

On Wednesday, Mr O'Leary said: “French air traffic controllers are free to go on strike, that’s their right, but we should be cancelling French flights, not flights leaving Ireland, going to Italy, or flights from Germany to Spain or Scandinavia to Portugal.

"The European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen has failed for five years to take any action to protect overflights and the single market for air travel. We’re again calling on her to take action to protect overflights which will eliminate over 90 per cent of these flight cancellations."

In other aviation industrial action news, an unrelated strike has been called at Heathrow Airport that will see hundreds of workers across the travel hub walk out. Unite said close to 800 workers will leave their posts from midnight on May 7 to the end of May 13 in a major display of industrial action in opposition to outsourcing. The union has strongly criticised Heathrow management for planning to outsource hundreds of roles in a cost-cutting exercise. AFS Ltd, an airline refuelling company, is also taking part in strike action on 4, 5 and 6 May.

It was also announced yesterday that airline catering strikes at Gatwick, by members of Unite employed by dNata, have been paused to allow workers to be balloted on a new settlement offer. Following negotiations, a new offer was put forward by the company.

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